1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a structure of a rear door openably and closably provided at a rear opening portion of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
In hatchback type vehicles or the like, an opening portion is provided at a rear portion of a vehicle body, at which a rear door is openably and closably provided. The rear door is generally provided with a frame portion to which a rear glass is attached.
There is known a vehicle rear body structure having the above-described structure at a rear portion of a vehicle body, in which a lateral beam having a closed sectional structure is provided so as to extend along a lower edge of a rear glass (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2007-176358).
In this vehicle rear body structure, a frame portion is provided at a door panel which is attached to a door frame. In addition, the lateral beam is separately attached to the frame portion in which both ends of the lateral beam are connected to the respective lateral side portions of the frame portion so as to horizontally partition the frame portion into an upper region and a lower region. The rear glass is provided in the upper region of the partitioned frame portion and an extra glass is provided in the lower region thereof.
However, in the conventional rear door structure described above, the lateral beam for reinforcing the structure is separately provided. Thus, there is a concern that as the number of parts increases, the cost increases.
In particular, forming a door panel by joining an upper door panel constituting the upper half of the door panel and a lower door panel constituting the lower half of the door panel has been considered. In this case, the number of parts further increases. For this reason, it is becoming more important to decrease the number of parts.
In view of the above-described circumstances, the present invention has an object of providing a rear door structure which is simplified and has a fewer number of parts and enables enhancement of the rigidity thereof.